


You Don't Know It, But I'm Watching You Drown

by nothing_rhymes_with_ianto



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:10:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto/pseuds/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto follows Jack, but there's no way he can help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Don't Know It, But I'm Watching You Drown

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this GIF set on Tumblr: http://mountperdition.tumblr.com/post/20323792114/ive-been-staring-at-this-for-too-long-and-now-it

He follows him. Speaks to him in death. Speaks to him in his dreams. But Jack doesn’t know, doesn’t remember.

He follows Jack out of London, back to Cardiff, watches him drink himself into a stupor and stumble out into the cold night. He pretends not to feel the tear tracks on his own face. Ianto follows him to an old stone building, down into a basement that’s smokey and sweet-smelling, stuck in the Victorian era, full of lush red cloth and tarnished brass and old brown wood. He watches as his captain storms to a corner of the room and sits in front of a little girl with big eyes and brown hair tied back by ribbons. She looks right at Ianto, unblinking, and somehow he knows she can see him.

She turns back to the captain, who’s leaning forward with a desperation Ianto’s never really seen before. His voice, though, is flat with sadness. “Is there anything I can do.”

“No,” her voice is timeless, her gaze wide and ageless and knowing. “There is nothing you can do. You cannot bring him back. You cannot bring them back.”

Jack stares at her for a long time, stares at her like there’s anger on the tip of his tongue and helplessness in his eyes, like he’s drowning in his loss, and then his face crumples and he breathes out once, hard, and storms out of the place with the heavy footsteps of the broken and lost.

Ianto doesn’t follow. He stands there, staring at the girl as she shuffles her cards. He doesn’t know what to do.

She looks up from her cards, right at him. “I am sorry,” she says to him, her little girl’s voice sounding strange and old. “If I could help him, I would.”

Ianto looks down at his feet. He feels strangely bereft, and wonders if he’d been holding on to some sort of hope that Jack could find a way to bring him back.

“I am sorry,” she says again, and he nods slowly at her before turning away and following the captain out into the night. He knows Jack, knows that he’ll run now that he’s realized he can’t fix it.

He finds Jack sitting out on the docks, looking out at the bay. Ianto sits beside him on the bench, taking in his lover’s red-rimmed eyes, pale face, tired expression. He’s clenching and unclenching his fingers around the rough wool of the coat, and Ianto’s afraid he’s just going to rip it apart with his bare hands.

But then Jack stands suddenly, gripping the metal rails as he stares out across the water, up into the stars. “I’m sorry, Ianto. I have to go.”

“Jack…” He reaches out to him, to touch his shoulder, but cannot. Ianto’s voice is a hoarse whisper, and he’s terrified and desperate and infinitely sad.

The captain swings around and walks away from the quay, coat billowing around his feet looking more like a mourner's veil than the hero’s cape it had once been.


End file.
